Q24 - The role of the Uplandian

[pistachio2014]

I got this question wrong. But after reviewing why (E) is correct I'd like to confirm my thought process and seek any additional insights.

According to the last sentence the stimulus states the first sentence is false. ("Since these conclusions are inconsistent with each other, it cannot be true that the role of the Uplandian supreme court is to protect all human rights against abuses of government power.") Basically the author is saying that because the conclusions are inconsistent, we know that the first sentence is false. Only (E) touches on inconsistency claiming that something is stated as false but has the possible to be true and also has the possibility to be false.

Not sure if this is the right way of thinking. Please advise!

[ManhattanPrepLSAT2]

I think that's pretty good!

One comment I'd add is that answer choice (E) is discussing 2 different premises, not just one premise.

[tianfeng102]

I went the hard way of eliminating A to D as wrong answers before selecting E as the right answer. The fun thing is that if you study the language of answer E ("and some other premise false"), you might wonder which premise in the stimulus could be false other than the first sentence.

[matthew.mainen]

Could an instructor please give a full breakdown of this question? The way I am tentatively seeing it is as follows:


Argument 1
Premise: The job of the Supreme Court is to uphold all human rights, but the constitution does not cover all areas of human rights.

Conclusion: Therefore, judges must look outside constitution sometimes to justify their decisions on related matters.

This seems pretty solid. No complaints here. The problem is with:

Argument 2
Premise: human rights will be subject to the whim of the judges unless they are operating solely under the constitution (a single objective standard)
Conclusion: Only the constitution can justify the court's decisions.

It seems like there is an implicit assumption here that decisions based on the whim of the judge, or anything else for that matter (even an objective standard other than the constitution), cannot be justified.

Because this assumption is never provided as a premise, we can't conclude that only the constitution can justify the court's decisions.

The question is, how do we tie all this back to what the author's main conclusion is trying to deny - that the role of the court is to protect human rights?

This seems sort of out of the blue seeing as how (faulty) Argument 2 contradicts the notion that the court suitably justifies its decisions rather than its over all purpose.

[yarlungtsangpo]

But what is the "particular premise"? You said "something" considered false could be equally possible true or false. This very "something" could be a statement other than a premise, say, the concusion. The conclusion saying "it cannot be true" could be equally possible true or false. Unfortunately, the answer E refers to "premise".

[christine.defenbaugh]

Lots of great thoughts and questions here!

This is a hefty stimulus - the length alone is a bit daunting! The key to getting through a Flaw question like this is to be particularly ruthless in breaking out the structure of the argument core BEFORE we do any heavy lifting on analysis.

matthew.mainen made a really excellent start of the structural breakdown, but got a bit bogged down assessing Mini-argument 2. Let's take it from the top:

Reading through the stimulus quickly, for structure, it is apparently that the final sentence is the main thrust of the argument.

MAIN ARGUMENT
PREMISE
These conclusions = inconsistent
CONCLUSION
False = (role of Uplandian S.C. is to protect all human rights from gov't power abuse.)

Okay, what conclusions is this talking about? The two conclusions that come earlier in the stimulus.

Mini Argument 1
PREMISES
Role of Uplandian S.C. is to protect all human rights from gov't power abuse.
Constitution not explicit about all human rights.
CONCLUSION
S.C. must go outside constitution sometimes.

Mini Argument 2
PREMISE
Human rights subject to judicial whim unless S.C. is bound by the Constitution alone.
CONCLUSION
S.C. must not go outside constitution ever.

These two conclusions are clearly inconsistent with each other, but does that necessarily mean that first premise is false? What about the second premise of Mini-Argument 1? What about the premise for Mini-Argument 2? Couldn't those be wrong instead of the first premise? Why are we picking on that statement as the problem, when it could be any of them?

This is what (E) drives home. The "particular premise" is the one quoted: that the role of Uplandian S.C. is to protect all human rights from gov't power abuse. But it's equally possible that some other premise is false.

Notice that we don't need to address or analyze the strength of either mini-argument. We only need to lay out the pieces, and analyze the gap in the final argument.



Elimination can be a powerful strategy here! If the structure was difficult to sort out, there are a number of answer choices we should still be able to kill off.

Not the Problem
(A) There is no general data trend vs single example that goes against it situation anywhere in the stimulus.
(B) Nothing in the stimulus mentions a view that is widely held or often accepted as correct.
(C) No mention of profit is made.
(D) There's no mention of a group vs members of a group.

Each wrong answer choice focuses on a specific structural element that's never mentioned anywhere in the stimulus.

Remember, when faced with a long and complex stimulus, read at a high altitude for the structure of the core first, before engaging in deep analysis! Don't do heavy lifting that you don't need.

I hope this helps clear things up a bit!

[maria487]

Can someone please further elaborate on why (D) is incorrect?

Here is how I interpreted it:

what is true of each members of the group = the 2 sub-conclusions which are "inconsistent with each other"
is also true of the group as a whole = because the 2 sub-conclusions were inconsistent with one another, the main conclusion cannot hold.

In other words, because the premises don't add up, neither does the conclusion. Where am I going wrong here?


Edit: is is the "each member of a group taken separately"? Because here we have to consider the 2 sub-conclusions as a unit in order to show that they together prove inconsistent, in order to finally conclude that the main conclusion doesn't hold. If my analysis is correct, this leads to my next question--would something really that subtle be considered a reasonable basis for eliminating an answer choice?

[ohthatpatrick]

Have you ever heard of a Part vs. Whole flaw?

This argument exhibits a Part to Whole flaw:
Each employee selected to the committee is efficient. Thus, the committee will be efficient.

This argument exhibits a Whole to Part flaw:
This sofa is a very expensive sofa. Thus this woodscrew on one of the legs of the sofa must be a very expensive woodscrew.

(D) is describing a Part to Whole flaw. Does this 20 line novel really seem like that?

You're using Subsidiary Conclusions as "parts". LSAT never does anything like that.

EVERY author assumes that if the "parts" of the argument are true (the evidence), then the whole is true (the conclusion).

But technically, a conclusion is still a part. It's not a whole. So you could say that every author assumes that if the parts are true (the evidence and conclusion) that the whole is true (the argument).

We didn't just describe a flaw. We described rationality. Our faith in Logic.